Sunday, April 01, 2007

There's a delicious irony in this, but first the article, from "The Independent":

***He then contacted the Royal Botanic Gardens, Edinburgh, famous for their work with the heather family, to see if they could offer an explanation. They could. Botanist Alan Bennell said: "This first surfaced when East European chemists reported finding a Viagra-type chemical in the floral tissues of winter-flowering heaths. They were able to isolate measurable amounts of material that is an analogue of the active principle in Viagra."

From the limited amount of information available, it is suggested the Viagra-analogue is best extracted by steeping the detached small flowers in neat alcohol. An infusion of about 20g of flowers in 100ml of fluid liberates the active principle. A quality full-strength vodka (at least 40 per cent) is also effective. Mr Bennell added: "There is some confusion whether oral consumption or topical application is more effective."

*******

A spokesman for Wyevale Garden Centres, which has 106 UK branches, said: "At first, it was just a trickle of inquiries, but now stores are virtually being besieged each weekend. We have had men buying dozens of the plants and, at one store in Croydon, there were men old enough to know better fighting over the last remaining trays."

********

The delicious irony is this: there are a lot of plants that have similar analogue properties, not to Viagra but to other things, and people who cultivate them or who exchange information about them risk being busted for either manufacturing drugs or possession of controlled substances. If you do what they advise doing with winter broom with any number of plants that are legal on their own to possess you could be liable for drug manufacturing charges.

But when it comes to men getting it up, well, that's another story. We'll not only describe what plant exactly you should use but even publish specific info on how to process it into a more potent form.

And the government in the UK won't object. There'll be even less objection in the U.S., which always magnifies the hypocrisy of the government of the United Kingdom.